- Aug 1 Eva Bartok [Éva Márta Szőke], Hungarian-British actress (The Crimson Pirate; Ten Thousand Bedrooms), dies at 71 [birth date sources vary between 1926 and 1929]
- Aug 2 Shari Lewis [Phyllis Hurwitz], American puppeteer and ventriloquist (Lamb Chop), dies of breast cancer at 65
- Aug 3 Alfred Schnittke, Russian composer and musicologist, dies after a series strokes at 63
- Aug 4 Yuri Artyukhin, Soviet Russian cosmonaut (Soyuz 14), dies at 68
- Aug 5 Otto Kretschmer, German U-boat commander, dies at 86
- Aug 5 Todor Zhivkov, Bulgaria communist leader of the People's Republic of Bulgaria (PRB), 1954-89, dies at 86
- Aug 6 André Weil, French mathematician (foundational work in number theory and algebraic geometry), dies at 92
- Aug 6 Nat Gonella, British big band jazz trumpeter, mellophonist, singer, and bandleader (The Georgians; Oh, Monah), dies at 90
- Aug 7 Wallace Coulter, American inventor and entrepreneur (Coulter Principle - made complete blood counts possible), dies at 85 [1]
- Aug 8 Mahmoud Saremi, Iranian journalist, killed by the Taliban at about 30
- Aug 11 Benjamin "Benny" Waters, American jazz saxophonist and clarinetist, dies at 96
- Aug 13 Julien Green, American-French writer (Frere Francois), dies at 97
- Aug 13 Nino Ferrer, French-Italian singer and composer (Mirza, Cornichons), dies at 63
- Aug 13 Philip von Schantz, Swedish painter, dies at 70
- Aug 16 Dorothy West, American writer of the Haarlem Renaissance (The Living is Easy), dies at 91
- Aug 17 Tadeusz Slusarski, Polish track and field athlete (b. 1950)
- Aug 17 Wladyslaw Komar, Polish athlete (Olympic gold shot put 1972) and actor, dies in a car crash at 58
- Aug 18 Otto Wichterle, Czech chemist and inventor of the soft contact lens, dies at 84 [1]
- Aug 18 Persis Khambatta, Indian actress (Star Trek, Megaforce), dies of a heart attack at 49
- Aug 19 Vasily Arkhipov, Soviet-Russian naval officer who saved the world by refusing to launch a nuclear torpedo from submarine B-59 during the Cuban Missile Crisis, dies of kidney cancer at 72
- Aug 20 Raquel Rastenni, Danish singer ("Seven Lonely Days"), dies at 82
- Aug 24 E. G. Marshall [Everett Eugene Grunz], American actor (12 Angry Men, The Defenders), dies of lung cancer at 84
- Aug 24 Gene Page, American arranger, composer, and record producer (Righteous Brothers; Marvin Gaye; Whitney Houston), dies at 58
- Aug 24 Jerry Clower 'The Mouth of the Mississippi', American country comedian (Nashville on Road), dies following surgery at 71
Assassination
Drug Overdose
Gunshot Wound
Murder
Plane Crash
Suicide